Developer's wife expected half of estate

THE ESTRANGED wife of deceased property developer Brian Rhatigan has told the High Court she knew her husband had offshore trusts and expected she and her children would be included in them, “like every other normal family who had trusts”.

Odilla Rhatigan said her husband had told her after they separated in 1998 she would “get half” of everything and she had trusted him. Due to his becoming seriously ill with motor neurone disease in 2002 and her son’s suicide in 2003, she had not pursued a legal separation or divorce.

But she was “very pained” when she read in his will she was to get one-third. There was “no way” the will reflected all he had.

She said she knew her husband had moved most of his assets out of the country and had made a lot of money from a development in the International Financial Services Centre and other projects.

Her solicitor had laughed when her husband claimed at a meeting after they separated that he was a consultant earning €30,000 a year, she said. Her solicitor asked him how, in those circumstances, he was paying his wife €70,000 a year and driving a Bentley.

Ms Rhatigan had never worked outside the home during her marriage and received allowances from her husband. She used inheritance money of her own to buy a family holiday home in Spain.

After their separation, she was paid €1,800 weekly by her husband’s office, except when he ran into financial difficulties as a result of a property development in Paris. When in Spain, she got maintenance cheques drawn on an offshore trust, she added.

A month after her husband died in 2006, his “right-hand man” for years, Paddy O’Sullivan, came to her and asked her not to block the proceeds of the sale of property at Kildare Enterprise Centre going out of the country. She agreed after Mr O’Sullivan told her the money was going to a trust of which she could avail.

Ms Rhatigan said her husband initially denied he was having a relationship with Rachael Kiely. In July 1998 he had sworn three times he was not in a relationship with her, she said, when that relationship had started on February 14th, 1998.

She had asked him to leave.

Ms Rhatigan was being cross-examined by James Dwyer SC, for Sharon Scally, Mr Rhatigan’s solicitor, in the hearing of proceedings before Ms Justice Mary Laffoy arising from Mr Rhatigan’s will.

Mr Rhatigan (60), who lived with Ms Kiely up to his death, signed a will in May 2005 in which he made Ms Scally a co-executor. Another executor has since died.

A legal caveat was entered to the will on behalf of Ms Rhatigan in November 2008 which resulted in Ms Scally seeking a court order admitting the will as Mr Rhatigan’s last will and testament.

Ms Rhatigan has counter-claimed she is entitled to half his estate and alleges Mr Rhatigan set up a trust to defeat or diminish her rights. The case continues.